I. Field
The present document relates generally to wireless communication and amongst other things to assignments for wireless communication systems.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple access terminals by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. Typically, a wireless communication system comprises several base stations, wherein each base station communicates with the mobile station using a forward link and each mobile station (or access terminal) communicates with base station using a reverse link.
Generally, when a transmitter of an access point or an access terminal completes transmitting a set of actual data and before transmitting another set of actual data packet, a break (also referred to as “a gap”) in transmission occurs. The gap in data transmission refers to duration of time when no actual data is transmitted on the assigned resource. In a typical communication system, in the case of the access point transmitter, a possibility exists that the gap in transmission may be construed as, a loss of the assigned resource. In this case, those resources are lost and bandwidth that is available is not fully utilized. Further, the gap in transmission may be interpreted as an indication that the assigned resources have been deassigned. In both cases, it is inefficient and may lower the quality and reliability of the communication system.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method to provide an indication of a gap in the transmission, so that the access point and access terminal do not interpret the gap in transmission as indication of not requiring the assigned resources or as an indication that the assigned resources were no longer available.